Among my fave Neil stories, from the rare occasions he reached back into his Rochester, N.Y., youth for a tale that sketched out who he came to be, was this:

One day, Neil was taken aside by a wise, old rabbi. Boy, the elder instructed him, run away from all this; it’s crap. Religion – Judaism, God, the Bible stories, an afterlife, all of it – is as phony as a $3 bill. If I had it to do all over again, the old man confided, I’d go into some other line of work.

So run Neil did. He remained an atheist for the rest of his life and, with his mic as megaphone and his show as pulpit, was one of the most outspoken non-believers of our time, railing against religious myths and conventions, popes, pedophile priests – you name it.